Moniza Alvi
Moniza Alvi (born 2 February 1954) is an English poet and prose writer. Life Alvi was born in Lahore, Pakistan,to a Pakistani father and a British mother. Her family moved to Hatfield, Hertfordshire, in England when she was a few months old.http://moniza.co.uk/ She did not revisit Pakistan until after the publication of one of her first books of poems - The Country at My Shoulder. She worked for several years as a high school teacher, but is now a freelance writer and tutor, living in Norfolk. She and her husband, Robert, have one daughter. Peacock Luggage, a book of poems by Moniza Alvi and Peter Daniels, was published as a result of the two poets winning together the Poetry Business Prize in 1991, in Alvi's case for 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan'.Sawnet Profile. Accessed March 2016. That poem and 'An Unknown Girl' have featured on England's GCSE exam syllabus for young teenagers. Since then, Moniza Alvi has written four poetry collections. She also published a series of short stories How the Stone Found its Voice (2005), inspired by Kipling's Just So Stories. In 2003 a selection of her poetry was published in a bilingual Dutch and English edition.Het land aan mijn schouder. Translations by Kees Klok. Sliedrecht: Wagner & Van Santen, 2003. ISBN 90-76569-36-3. A selection from her earlier books, Split World: Poems 1990–2005, was published in 2008.Bloodaxe, ISBN 978-1-85224-802-4 On 16 January 2014, Alvi participated in the BBC Radio 3 series "The Essay - Letters to a Young Poet". Taking Rainer Maria Rilke's classic text, Letters to a Young Poet as inspiration, leading poets wrote a letter to a protégé.http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03pdg5d/The_Essay_Letters_to_a_Young_Poet_Moniza_Alvi/ Writing Alvi says: "'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan' was one of the first poems I wrote. When I wrote this poem I wasn't actually back in Pakistan. The girl in the poem would be me at about 13. The clothes seem to stick to her in an uncomfortable way, a bit like a kind of false skin, and she thinks things aren't straightforward for her. I found it was important to write the Pakistan poems because I was getting in touch with my background. And maybe there's a bit of a message behind the poems about something I went through, that I want to maybe open a few doors if possible."BBC GCSE Bitesize. Accessed March 2016. Recognition The Country at My Shoulder (1993) led to her being selected for the Poetry Society's New Generation Poets promotion. In 2002 she received a Cholmondeley Award for her poetry. Publications Poetry *''Peacock Luggage'' (with Peter Daniels). Huddersfield, UK: Smith / Doorstop, 1992. *''The Country at My Shoulder''. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. *''A Bowl of Warm Air''. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. *''Carrying my Wife''. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe, 2000. ISBN 978-1-85224-537-5 *''Souls''. Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2002. ISBN 978-1-85224-585-6 *''How the Stone Found Its Voice''. Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2005. ISBN 978-1-85224-694-5 *''Split World: Poems, 1990-2005''. Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2008. ISBN 978-1-85224-802-4 *''Europa''. Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2008. *''At the Time of Partition''. . Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2013. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Moniza Alvi, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 2, 2016. Audio / video *''The Poetry Quartets 6'' (with George Szirtes, Michael Donaghy, & Anne Stevenson). Bloodaxe / British Council 2000. ISBN 978-1-85224-519-1 See also *List of British poets References * Sonja Lehmann: Moniza Alvi’s Europa. Rewriting Myth from a Feminist Postcolonial Perspective, in: Verorten - Verhandeln - Verkörpern. Interdisziplinäre Analysen zu Raum und Geschlecht, edited by Silke Förschler, Rebekka Habermas, Nikola Roßbach. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag 2014, pp. 41–60, ISBN 9783839423998 Notes External links ;Poems *Moniza Alvi at Poetry International (profile & 4 poems) *Moniza Alvi at PoemHunter (3 poems) ;Audio / video *Listen to Moniza Alvi reading her poetry - a British Library recording, 27 October 2008. *BBC poetry reading 6 January 2009. (Audio, 3 mins) *Moniza Alvi poems at YouTube ;About *Sawnet Profile *Moniza Alvi at the British Council *Moniza Alvi at Poetry and Politics *Moniza Alvi Official website. Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:Pakistani people of English descent Category:British women poets Category:British women writers Category:Alumni of the University of York Category:Poets from Lahore Category:Writers of Pakistani descent Category:Writers from Lahore Category:Pakistani emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Pakistani women writers